CLS has 59 direct participants and more than 6,000 indirect participants (as of October 2009), and in 2008 it settled on average around 546,000 instructions to a value of around USD 4 trillion a day.3 Because of the vast volume of transactions on the global foreign exchange market, with its risk-reducing settlement mechanism CLS makes a significant contribution to the stability of the global financial system. By now, around a half of all foreign exchange transactions in the world are settled via CLS.4 The Swiss franc was one of the currencies settled in CLS from the very start, together with the US dollar, the pound sterling, the Japanese yen, the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar and the euro. By now, the number of currencies settled in CLS has expanded from seven to 17. The Danish krone, the Norwegian krone, the Singapore dollar and the Swedish krona joined in September 2003, followed by the Hong Kong dollar, the Korean won, the New Zealand dollar and the South African rand in December 2004. The last two currencies up to now, the Israeli shekel and the Mexican peso, joined in May 2008.